


A Thousand Days

by elisetales



Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: Angst, Bloodplay, Brain Injury, Coma, Knifeplay, M/M, Rape/Non-con References, Request Meme, Romance, Violence, dark!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-26
Updated: 2012-08-26
Packaged: 2017-11-12 22:21:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/496265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisetales/pseuds/elisetales
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abel's in a coma after being involved in a serious accident. Cain is grieving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thousand Days

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted to the Starfighter Request Meme. A lovely anon posted fanart (http://i48.tinypic.com/28wfgnp.jpg) along with a request, and this is the - slightly edited - result. Props to the anon for such a beautiful, heartrending prompt.
> 
> Also, the title of this fic comes from the Deftones song '976-EVIL', which was written about someone in a coma.

“His condition hasn’t changed,” the medic says to Cain’s back, tone careful and gentle. “You can come back and check on him in another few days, but I can’t see him taking a turn for the better any time soon; I’ll have to be honest with you. I’m very sorry.”  
  
So that’s that, then. Abel’s as good as a breathing corpse.   
  
Cain presses his fingers against the glass so hard that it smudges, and stands there for a while staring at Abel’s limp body, which has been locked there in that room for months, lying on a metal slab and covered head to toe in tubes and wires. Cain wishes he could smash a fist through the glass and rip those tubes off of Abel; carry him back to their empty room and look after him himself. But he can’t. Abel is theirs now, not his, and there’s nothing he can do for him even if he wanted to.   
  
The way they’ve got him covered, Cain can barely see Abel’s face, though he thinks that’s probably for the best. He doesn’t want to look at Abel – doesn’t want to be confronted with the ugly reality of what he’s done to him – and the last thing he needs is to see his face and be reminded of how he was before the accident. Remembering is always the worst part.

He turns around and stalks off without looking at the medic – if he looks at or speaks to him he knows he’ll only start throwing punches – and sets off in search of a distraction, leaving the doors to the medical bay swinging behind him.   
  
***

He finds Deimos down on the fighters’ base level, leaning over a guard railing and twirling his knife around on his fingertips as he watches a bunch of fighters brawl below him. He notices Cain’s presence before Cain says anything and turns around to touch his shoulder, a look of genuine concern on his face. “How is he?” he asks Cain in a small voice.  
  
Cain shakes his head. Doesn’t want to talk about it.   
  
“I’m sorry,” Deimos tells him, not for the first time. Cain wonders if he really is sorry, but fast decides it doesn’t matter. Nothing does. Deimos can lie to him all he likes and it won’t change a thing.

But whether he's a liar or not, Cain appreciates Deimos in a way he hadn’t before. Deimos is the only one left on the station who truly knows him; knows him like Abel did. He always understands what Cain needs without asking. Deimos takes him by the wrist then, without uttering a single word, and leads him away from it all, somewhere they can be alone.  
  
Cain sits on the floor of the storage unit and has Deimos straddle him half-naked, his uniform bunched around his waist. Cain hasn’t fucked Deimos since Abel walked into his life and inadvertently made sure he couldn’t get it up for anyone else, but since Abel’s accident they’ve started up again: Deimos is back on his dick like he’s been waiting forever for the opportunity, and Cain can’t even muster the energy to hate him for it.  
  
He flicks open Deimos’ knife and holds it up against the smaller fighter’s throat, digging it into his windpipe. Deimos licks his lips, keening and arching his back, and presses up against it, as if he’s begging Cain not just to cut him but to  _kill_  him. Cain isn’t surprised Deimos would get off on something like that, even if it results in his death. He doesn’t look much but he’s even sicker than Cain is.   
  
Cain considers going through with it. He could fuck Deimos – rape him, even – and then kill them both; let some fucker find them in here covered in blood and guts. But he won’t do it; he knows that as soon as the thought crosses his mind. And it’s not because he doesn’t want to. He does. It’s because he knows that if he kills them now then he will never see Abel again; and what if he wakes up?

And so he breathes in and out, so loudly it’s all he can hear, and slashes the knife across Deimos’s throat, making a shallow little cut. Deimos gasps and grabs at Cain’s wrist, urging the knife closer, deeper, until blood is running down his throat and over his chest and they’re both  _drenched_  in it.   
  
The smell makes Cain dizzy. He trails his fingertips through the mess while Deimos rocks against him and moans, hands twisted in Cain’s hair, and lets out a low growl, flipping Deimos over onto his hands and knees and dragging down his uniform so that it’s bunched around his thighs. He fucks Deimos hard and rough, makes him bleed, and afterwards he’s so tired and sick that he lets Deimos cling to him and stroke his hair while the blood dries.  
  
***  
  
Eventually Cain gets his new navigator, some uppity little prick who thinks he’s better than him, and everything around him seems to go back to normal. Only Cain doesn’t. Everyone has apparently forgotten about Abel – no one talks about him anymore or leaves flowers by his bed – and it’s almost like he’s dead already.  
  
But Cain can’t blame them all for forgetting. He’s trying to forget, too; has even stopped visiting Abel in the medical bay. There’s no point. It only makes him sick to look at Abel lying there so helpless – makes him feel as if something is dragging its claws all the way through his guts – and so he stays away. Maybe Abel will die soon and it’ll finally be over.   
  
Still, there are some things Cain refuses to forget, no matter how long it’s been. He won’t let the new navigator sleep in Abel’s bed, for a start. He banishes the little fucker to his old bed instead and keeps Abel’s for himself, just so the new navigator can’t claim Abel’s bed along with the rest of his life. Cain knows that if Abel ever wakes up he won’t be pleased about some other little prick he doesn't know sleeping in his sheets – he was always so uptight when it came to hygiene – and so he’s doing this for him.   
  
Cain hates the new navigator so much that he can’t even fuck him, even if he does look like Abel. He’s  _not_  Abel, and the fact he looks so much like him – they’ve got the same pale hair and flawless skin; the same bony wrists – just makes it all the worse.   
  
All he wants is to get rid of him, and so he does things he knows will probably get him reported – like chain-smoking in the room and refusing to turn up the vents until his new navigator develops a chest infection; backhanding the little smart-ass across the mouth every time he says something Cain doesn’t like, which just happens to be all the time; and deliberately trashing their quarters whenever he’s got an opportunity.  
  
But nothing works. They remain assigned together, and Cain doesn’t even get a talking-to about his behavior from one of the officers. He wonders what’s up until one day he’s digging around in the overheard storage closet above the bed and realizes the little cunt has gotten his own back. The box full of Abel’s things that Cain has been keeping hidden up there is gone, and Cain sees red. 

He grabs the navigator by the throat as soon as he comes into the room. “Where the fuck is it?” he spits through clenched teeth, so angry he’s seeing double. “What did you do with it?” He slams the little navigator into a wall, so hard he smacks his head, and shakes him by the collar. “If you don’t tell me something now, I’m gonna fucking kill you!”  
  
The navigator breaks down almost immediately and starts to cry – he’s young and stupid, this one; just barely out of the academy; and Cain is sure the little prick doesn’t get how things work around here – and hiccups, wiping his nose on his sleeve and stammering, “It’s under the sink in the bathroom; I only took it because you were being so mean to me—”  
  
With a low hiss of disgust, Cain lets him go and the navigator collapses to the floor, sniffling pathetically.  
  
He wasn’t lying. Cain finds the box under the bathroom sink and sits down on the edge of Abel’s bed to inspect the contents; to ensure everything is still there. It is.   
  
“He’s dead, Cain,” his new navigator whispers from the floor.  
  
“Shut the fuck up,” Cain warns without looking at him.   
  
“He’s never going to wake up—”  
  
“I said shut the fuck up!” Cain snarls at him.  
  
The new navigator flinches but goes on, “You’ve got to let go of him. If you don’t, you and I are never going to get along. You’re always comparing me to him; telling me I’m useless compared to him—”  
  
“You  _are_  useless compared to him.”  
  
“No I’m not!” the navigator angrily exclaims, and Cain is almost taken aback at his bravery. Sighing, the navigator hangs his head and finishes, very quietly, “You’re just not in love with me like you were with him.”  
  
Cain is at a loss for words. He doesn’t know whether to get up and beat the shit out of the mouthy little prick or just sit here like the useless bastard he is and do nothing at all. He’s too tired to beat on someone who won’t at least give him the thrill of fighting back and so he sits there, jaw clenched, and seethes, “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. One more word and you’re gonna wish you never joined the Alliance.”   
  
But as he lies awake in bed that night, unable to sleep, he wonders whether his new navigator  _does_  know what he’s talking about. He gets up, throws on his clothes, and manages to talk his way into the medical bay – he knows it’s way too late for visiting hours, but he must look so desperate that the medic pities him enough to let him in against policy.   
  
The medic allows him inside Abel’s room this time, too, and Cain sits down in the chair by Abel’s bed and stares at the wilting flowers on the bedside. He hates himself for not bringing fresh ones – he’s been too much of a coward lately to come up here at all; too busy fucking Deimos and cutting him up, too busy making his new navigator’s life a living hell, to bother. But the least he could have done is made sure Abel didn’t have to share a room with rotting flowers.   
  
He still can’t look at him, can’t watch the jerky rise and fall of his chest without feeling sick, but he forces himself to put his hand over Abel’s, which is rested at the centre of his bony chest. He curls his fingers around Abel’s cold hand and squeezes, silently willing him to just wake the fuck up and put an end to this.   
  
But he won’t stir. Cain wonders whether he’s still in there at all, whether the new navigator was right when he’d told Cain that Abel was dead. He wonders then about the  _other_  thing the navigator had said; rolls those unwelcome words over and over in his mind until he almost wants to speak them out loud.  _I’m not in love with him_ , he repeats to himself, but he still can’t look at Abel; still can’t let go of him.  
  
He leans over the bed and hangs his head, still holding onto Abel’s hand, and is left with the bitter feeling that he’s lying to himself. He wishes he wasn’t. If this is love, he thinks, then it’s got to be the cruellest fucking joke the universe could ever play on him.

 


End file.
